Clean Air Mercury Rule of 2005
Clean Air Mercury Rule of 2005
Introduction
Half of all electricity in the United states is generated by burning coal, a process that emits mercury and pollutants. The Clean Air Mercury Rule of 2005 (CAMR) was a regulation issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that proposed to regulate emissions of mercury from U.S. power plants. CAMR was part of a suite of new regulations, the Clean Air Rules of 2004, that were intended to improve America’s air quality. In a 2004 Fact Sheet on CAMR, the EPA stated that CAMR was designed to “permanently cap and reduce mercury emissions from power plants for the first time ever.” The EPA proposed CAMR in December 2003, and formally issued it on March 15, 2005. CAMR was challenged in federal court within weeks and overturned by court order in February 2008.
Historical Background and Scientific Foundations
Mercury is a metal found in trace amounts in coal and fuel oil. It is also highly toxic. Even trace amounts, usually absorbed through drinking water and eating fish, can interfere with the development of fetuses and children, causing reduced intelligence and other neurological problems later in life. Coal-fired power plants in the United States (some of which also burn some oil) release about 48 tons of mercury into the air every year, the largest source of mercury emissions in the United States. According to the EPA, up to 600,000 children are born each year with excessive mercury in their bodies.
The EPA issued CAMR on March 15, 2005, in association with its new Interstate Air Quality Rule, which would require states to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) through a cap-and-trade program. A cap-and-trade program specifies the total amount of a pollutant that can be emitted by an industry and is capped or limited by law. In the case of CAMR, the EPA proposed a declining cap on power-plant mercury emissions that would bottom out at 15 tons after 2020. Emissions from the 450 coal-burning power plants in the United States were at about 48 tons per year in the early 2000s, so the eventual reduction would have amounted to 33 tons (69%).
The trade portion of cap-and-trade refers to the buying and selling of pollution credits by power-plant operators. That is, each polluter is assigned a certain number of credits, and each credit entitles that polluter to emit a certain amount of the pollutant, in this case mercury. Possession of a single credit might, for example, confer the right to emit one ton of mercury. The total of all the credits issued would equal the emissions cap. Polluters would then be free to buy and sell these credits so that, in principle, companies who could reduce their emissions most profitably would end up accounting for most of the reduction in emissions, while others emitted more. Similar schemes have been successfully used to control acid rain in the United States and are being implemented in Europe to help control emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
Impacts and Issues
As soon as it was issued, CAMR came under heavy criticism. Far from creating clean air, its critics argued, CAMR allowed coal-plant operators to continue to emit mercury when they should be required to install advanced technology to remove mercury from their emissions as completely as possible. Environmentalists and governments of states in the northeastern United States, downwind of most of the nation’s coal-fire electricity generating plants, favored a rule requiring mercury-scrubbing technology. In 2005, New Jersey, New York, and six other states filed suit against the EPA, arguing that CAMR violated the Clean Air Act. In issuing CAMR, the EPA sought to exempt power plants from Section 112 of the Clean Air Act, which would have required power-plant operators to reduce emissions to approximately 5 tons (a 90% reduction).
The original plaintiffs (parties bringing the lawsuit) were joined in the suit by six more states, the city of Baltimore, Native American tribes, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, the American Nurses Association, and Physicians for Social Responsibility. In February 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that CAMR violated the Clean Air Act and was therefore void.
As a result of the decision, all new U.S. coal plants, of which about 100 were proposed as of 2008, would be required to control their mercury emissions as well as the best-controlled comparable source or better. This standard is termed the “maximum achievable control technology” standard by the Clean Air Act.
Under the terms of the court ruling, the EPA had two years (beginning in February 2008) in which to
WORDS TO KNOW
CAP-AND-TRADE PROGRAM: An emissions trading program designed to control industrial pollution by providing economic incentives.
GREENHOUSE GAS: A gas whose accumulation in the atmosphere increases heat retention.
POLLUTION CREDIT: A credit allowing the holder to legally emit a certain amount of pollutants, and which can be bought and sold as part of a cap-and-trade emissions program.
develop strict mercury emissions standards for existing power plants. Despite the demise of CAMR, mercury emissions from existing plants were expected to decrease somewhat by 2010 because technologies installed to meet emissions reductions for SO2 and NOx, as required by the Clean Air Interstate Rule, which remained in effect, would result in incidental decreases in mercury emissions.
See Also Air Pollution; Coal Resource Use; Marine Water Quality
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Periodicals
DePalma, Anthony. “EPA Sued Over Mercury in the Air.” New York Times (March 30, 2005).
Web Sites
Environment News Service. “Appeals Court Rejects EPA Mercury Cap-and-Trade Rule.” http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2008/2008-02-08-01.asp (accessed May 2, 2008).
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Clean Air Mercury Rule.” http://www.epa.gov/camr/index.htm (accessed May 2, 2008).
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Fact Sheet—EPA Proposes Options for Significantly Reducing Mercury Emissions from Electric Utilities. http://www.epa.gov/oar/mercuryrule/hg_factsheet1_29_04.htm (accessed May 2, 2008).